Letters: Fox hunting

Your article "The Big Question: Has the hunting ban really changed anything, or should the law be redrawn?" (26 December), failed to avoid the usual "It's all a bit of a joke really" tone so common when journalists report on this issue.

The reality is no joke at all. I speak as a hunt monitor, someone who tries to gather evidence of illegal hunting, which is rife. It is not funny to see a group of people aggressively persisting in making a fool of the law, continuing to chase and kill terrified foxes, while their activities are protected from the monitors' cameras by the hostile, obstructive and sometimes violent behaviour of the hunt followers. Criminal activity protected by menaces is a serious matter.

To watch a fox hunt is to enter a stark, dark and frightening world, a world filled with fear and threat, a chaotic event in which hounds can run all over a busy road, a village can be invaded by a pack in full cry as they pursue an animal frantic to escape. This activity fills the human participants with an unholy excitement and a feeling of power. As well as the mounted field, there are quad bikes carrying terriermen, their terriers contained in tiny boxes mounted on the quads, the bike also loaded with spades and drain rods. Believe me, unless your taste runs to animal abuse, this is no jolly, frolicking bit of British eccentricity: it is a very dark world, dressed up like a sinister pantomime.

Fortunately, more than 60 MPs have already signed an Early Day Motion to have the law strengthened to curtail this anarchy. So while the hunters bray their defiance, Parliament is getting on with dealing with their arrogant excesses. That is the real story.

Penny Little

Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

Kernel of hope from Arab world

From within the present conflict in Gaza, a kernel of hope for a lasting peace may come from an unlikely source, the Arab populations themselves. Unreported in the mainstream British media, an increasing number of the Arab press and political commentators are openly condemning Hamas, and expressing an understanding of Israel's predicament.

Although democratically elected, Hamas has repeatedly proved itself unwilling to act in the best interests of its people. This, coupled with the missile attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza, has created for the first time in generations a degree of understanding for the Israeli position from the Arab world.

This voice of empathy, long absent from the region, could be a vital turning-point in building a long-term peace across the borders of the Middle East.

It is time that those on both sides of the divide put aside generations of mistrust, and demonstrate that they can be objective and even-handed in working towards a lasting peace.

Dr Wafik Moustafa

Chairman, Conservative Arab Network, Acton, London

The British Prime Minister is deeply concerned over missile attacks on Israel from Gaza. He has called on Gazan militants to ease all rocket attacks on Israel immediately, and says Israel needs to do all it can to avoid civilian casualties. The United States holds Hamas responsible for the violence.

Where is the balancing condemnation of the Israeli blockade of Gaza which, regardless of the six-month Hamas cease-fire, continued to render unsustainable in Gaza all industry, trade, sanitation, medication, education, sustenance and clean water? Was that blockade not violence?

Where is the international condemnation of the Israeli colonisation of the West Bank, through the continued building of settlements despite a UN resolution condemning them? Is an alien invasion not an act of violence?

Where is the condemnation of the checkpoints that make movement difficult and commerce nigh impossible for Palestinians on the West Bank? Where are the condemnations of the segmenting of the Palestinian territories by roads that serve only Jewish settlements; the annexation of land and water by settlers from Russia or the Bronx? Do these actions not amount to violence?

Where are the denunciations of the Israeli government's refusal to allow Arab refugees to return to properties in Israel from which they fled in 1948, though it insists on a universal Jewish "right of return" to a land from which the immigrants' ancestors were driven at about the time that England was Welsh? Is the forcible seizure of property not violence?

And where is the recognition that the establishment of the State of Israel – a humanely justified response to the plight of those survivors of European Jewry – itself involved injustice? Something of the sort is surely essential to a just and stable peace in the Near East.

Peter Regent

Kindertransport Refugee, 1939, Newport-on-Tay, Fife

When will the Americans and the British condemn the Israeli massacre in Gaza for the war crime that it is? All President George Bush (or even President-elect Barack Obama) have to do to limit the bloodbath is to tell Israel to stop now, and, of course, we Brits will follow suit.

There is no comparison between Hamas's homemade flying pipes which have killed fewer than 20 in a decade and the Israeli response with F-16s and Hellfire missiles. Yet when the Israelis murder and maim hundreds in a single weekend – many of them civilians and children – their slick PR machine swings into action.

They rarely mention that Hamas was voted in by free and fair elections and the policemen they murdered in this assault are real policemen engaged in the security of their pitiful domain.

They don't mention that they have kidnapped and imprisoned a large number of ministers in Gaza's democratically elected government along with more than 10,000 Palestinians in Guantanamo Bay-style conditions, with no access to any sort of fair trial. And they don't mention that their shock and awe tactics – which began as children were leaving school – will further traumatise a generation of kids. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this bloodbath so far is that it has been committed out for political reasons, to strengthen the Israeli hand in the next ceasefire agreement with Hamas and to make Olmert's government look as tough as Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Likud leader favourite to win the forthcoming Israeli election.

Surely this cynical strategy of massacring women, children, innocent civilians and policeman for political gain amounts to a war crime.

Stefan Wickham

Woldingham, Surrey

Your editorial ignores the fact that in the past two and a half years, since the end of the second Lebanon war, not a single rocket has been fired by Hizbollah at Israel. That has made the Israelis living in the north much more safe than they were before that war.

The Israelis living in the south have been exposed to rocket fire for seven years. Even after Israel left the Gaza strip three years ago, the terror activity from there did not stop. Thousands of rockets were launched at Israeli towns and villages. Even after a truce was declared six months ago, the rocket-fire did not stop. In the last week alone, more than 170 rockets and mortar shells landed in Israel. There are towns where the residents have only 15 seconds from the time the alarm sounds to find shelter.

As you rightly say, no state can be expected to tolerate rockets being launched at its civilians. That is why Israel had to respond as it did. And that is why the overwhelming majority of Israelis support that response.

Dr Jacob Amir

Jerusalem

What exactly do the Palestinians want? The worst enemy they have ever had is their own leadership. They must know by this time that force of arms will never give them what they want, being that what they want is for Israel to pack up and move, which is not going to happen.

Fair enough for the British press to take the moral high ground and tug at our heartstrings with stories of the loss of innocent children. It's a pity that Hamas don't see it the same way.

R Vanstone

Faversham, Kent

Scandal of caring for the elderly

Johann Hari's moving article (26 December) brought back memories of several years spent working as an agency carer in nursing homes in Sussex. Under a Blair government that was "seriously relaxed about people getting very rich", it came as a shock that our society was apparently also seriously relaxed about disrespecting and neglecting the elderly.

Although there is a high standard of care in many homes, in others there is a desperate need for improvement. Communication is often a big problem and many carers from foreign backgrounds have difficulties with our language and culture.

Dealing with dementia and Alzheimer's is a physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually demanding job. Carers earn roughly £7 per hour. Bad pay, exhausting long hours in overheated and smelly conditions, inadequate training, staff shortages, complaining and grieving relatives, are often the norm.

In nursing homes and NHS geriatric wards, I have known more than one excellent carer leave to work at a supermarket checkout for more money and more self-respect, although they basically loved the job. Of course the managers and owners of nursing homes tend to do rather better financially.

Neglect is a form of abuse. Despite increased media coverage and an increasing elderly population, the treatment of many of our grandparents and parents (and eventually all of us) is likely to remain a national disgrace for years. Perhaps the economic downturn will shock us into re-assessing what is actually important in life and in a society. Or perhaps we will consider the elderly and those who look after them even less worthy of our respect.

Tim Burness

Brighton

The truth about carbon emissions

Dr Roger James (letters, 20 December) does not appear to understand the many factors associated with global warming, and small fluctuations are to be expected, an example of which are those induced by El Nino.

Even if CO2 emissions were cut to zero today, global warming will continue for 500 to 1,000 years while the effects work their way through the complex system that is the earth's climate, carbon dioxide absorption and heat-sink systems; a few years here and there are insignificant.

I am sure he would find reading the Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change most instructive.

John Harvey

Blagdon, North Somerset

Briefly...

Einstein and bees

I'd forgotten how eco-illiterate Richard Ingrams could be on "wildlife" (20 December). So, "very few people are interested in wildlife"? The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has over a million members, and the age profile of their adverts suggests many are "oldies". Perhaps we'd be more concerned for wildlife if we believed Einstein's dictum that without the (declining) bee, mankind has four years to go. Not much left for "oldies" like him.

Rob Dunford

Manchester

Birth pains

I told friends and relations we were expecting our fourth child. Reactions ranged mainly from shocked to aghast, the question, "Planned?" popping up immediately (yes it was). I have been reminded about the sleepless nights babies bring and the difficult teenage years. A tiny handful congratulated us. Values are now so skewed children are seen as "hard work" and the sooner you can get them "off your hands" into paid care or school, the better.

A Elliott

Spilsby, Lincolnshire

Demand for justice

The guilty verdict for the mastermind of the Rwandan genocide, Theoneste Bogosora, at the International Criminal Court in Rwanda is groundbreaking. But justice still has a long way to go for the million who died. Genocide suspects remain free in the West and Kenya, knowing the ICTR is to finish in two years. These evil men must be brought to justice, and those found guilty serve in Rwandan prisons, where they can be seen by survivors of their crimes.

Andrew Wallis

Meltham, West Yorkshire

Pardon us

The 26 December article "Sorry! Bush revokes pardon" suggested the financier and philanthropist Michael Milken has only recently supported medical research. In fact, his broad programme of philanthropy (Fortune magazine called him "The Man Who Changed Medicine") began in the 1970s and was formalised with the establishment of the Milken Family Foundation in 1982.

Geoffrey Moore

Senior Adviser to Michael Milken, Santa Monica, California, USA

Feet of etymology

Including cranes in your report on Man's avian friends (29 December), and associating them with the lines of life, reminds me of the etymology of the word pedigree. It is from Middle French pie de grue, because links in old genealogical tables were marked by cranes' feet. Thus the image of the life-principle was embedded in the chart of family history.

Stephen Usher

Egham, Surrey